


Never Break the Chain

by JM_Winters



Series: Mirrored Frustrations [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JM_Winters/pseuds/JM_Winters
Summary: Soren may be a fool, but at least he’s free of his villainous father.Claudia would never break the chain that links her to her family.
Relationships: Claudia & Soren (The Dragon Prince), Claudia & Viren (The Dragon Prince), Soren & Viren (The Dragon Prince), Viren (The Dragon Prince)/Original Character(s)
Series: Mirrored Frustrations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714273
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	1. Soren: Damning Love and Lies

**Author's Note:**

> So a couple of things:
> 
> 1) This is a continuation of a bit of a series. The first one isn’t needed to understand this one. It’s merely character studies on characters who act as foils to another character.
> 
> 2) Yes the Fleetwood Mac references are intentional
> 
> 3) I head canon Soren as not being a complete idiot. I know a lot of people seem to think of him such and considering he is the comic relief character, it makes sense. The narrative, particularly in season 3, is showing him to be smarter than we think though, and add in the sheer amount of emotional abuse and gaslighting he goes through and the reality is that Soren may very well believe he’s an idiot because his father has been impressing that image on him for years. Problem is, when you have a comic relief character you’re trying to develop in that way you hit massive inconsistencies if you’re still trying to have them be your comic character because it is so very difficult to have your bread sandwich and eat it too. :)
> 
> 4) My interpretation is that he’s not book smart and Viren doesn’t value other types of intelligences as highly, as Claudia struggles with some social graces but Viren seems to value her as more intelligent because of her dark magic knowledge. Furthermore, I head cannon that his struggle to be book smart stems from a learning disability.

“Don’t make me choose!”

It was an ironic echo, Soren found. Well, he would find it if he understood what, exactly, irony was in the first place. But it was, indeed, an echo that he heard from Claudia. An echo of his younger self as he looked between their mother and father and froze like a deer.

It started off rather simple. A few words here and there that he could never piece together. A mother desperate to get through her son.

“Soren, you know you deserve better than that.” She would urge when Viren had ignored him for Claudia. 

“What do you mean mother?” He would ask innocently. She would hug him then.

“Soren, you are a smart boy.” Her smile would waver. “Not every bit of intelligence is learned from books, love. Don’t believe your father.”

“But I can’t do what he and Claudia does!” He would protest. “Every time Clauds gives me a book it just gets all jumbled when I read it. I must be an idiot.”

“Soren, I believe you. I believe your Dad said that.” She would say after Viren claimed Soren must have “misheard” something. “Him denying it is cruel and it shows badly on him, not on you, love.”

But Soren always had all these excuses in his head to dismiss his mother’s validation.

I messed up again.  
I need to be better.  
I’m an idiot.  
I’m a worthless son.

So when his mother finally said she had enough and she was leaving, Soren wasn’t quite sure what to do. Part of him, too young to understand the greater ramifications of what his father was doing, said something simple: he didn’t feel good with the way things were. Viren however sat with him in the commotion. He gave reasons where Soren’s mother only offered silence for her decision.

“Sometimes, my dear son,” Viren started, “relationships don’t work out. Sometimes, someone is unhappy in the relationship.”

“Is Mom unhappy?” Soren had asked.

“Of course she is, and you know Soren, maybe a lot of this was a bit too much for her. Being a mother, being a wife. Not everyone is meant for such things or wants them.” Viren pulled Soren into a hug. “I’ll be honest though, being a father was one of the things I wanted the most. You are my dearest son. You are my flesh and blood and I will always hold you dear to me.”

Soren frowned. Just that same day, Viren’s had also said that Soren could never get anything right and that sometimes if he could just be more like Claudia, it would be better. He pushed this thought aside to stare at his father’s bright, open face, and smiled when Viren drew him into a rare hug. “What’s going to happen now, Dad?”

“I’m not quite sure.” He admitted softly, still holding onto Soren. “just know, though, that whoever you choose, I will be there for you. After all, you are my dearest son.”

“Choose?” He pulled away to look at his Dad “Why would I choose?”

Viren gave Soren a tight smile. “Your mother wants to leave, and I think…” Viren paused, thinking on his next words, “you and Claudia are old enough. It would be unfair for one of us to demand that you stay with us. I’m willing to find something that works so you can be with both of us.

His mother wanted him to come with her. She swore it would be better once they went to Del Bar. Somewhere, she stressed, too far for Viren to reach them. She told him to come with her, that she wanted to take him. Only him. Soren told her she was being unfair. That she was trying to keep him from his father and separate him from Claudia. She relented, then told him he had to choose.

So when Soren screamed at his mother not to make him pick between her and his father, and his mother insisted that he had to, Soren did what Viren would. He picked the option that would spite her. Perhaps in some ways he was more like his father than he thought.

“I choose Dad. Because he’s not selfishly trying to split us apart.” His mother had looked so crestfallen. Disheartened. Disappointed. She left without any further word. Away from Katolis. Last he heard — and Soren used to keep tabs until his father found out and yelled at him — she was in her home down in Del Bar. 

He still remembered the look of complete fury on Viren’s face when he found out Soren was keeping an eye on his mother.

“If you miss her that much, then maybe you should leave me and Claudia too.”

Soren didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to do such a thing back then. 

Now, here he was, staring at Claudia realizing that things had in some ways come full circle. He wondered how much of their mother that Claudia was seeing in him now — he never looked that much like his father, and in hindsight, realizing that his father was a villain — that Viren was the sort of man to make others burn for nothing more than his own sense of pride — Soren was kind of glad he took more after her.

After all, as much as part of him still resented their mother for leaving so suddenly, for explaining nothing and picking up off to Del Bar, now Soren got it. Years of being shamed, of being called an idiot, of feeling like the dead weight to the Viren and Claudia show, years of feeling he couldn’t be completely honest with his own sister did something to you. It made you see many situations differently. Like a woman so uncaring that she would leave her family. He was beginning to understand why she did it, and beginning to understand that his father had simply turned him and Claudia into another tool against her. Soren now knew why his mother left. It was for the same reason he was about to leave too, if he thought about it. 

Even if leaving got him labeled a deserter by half of his family.

“Please Soren, don’t do this. Don’t make me choose! Not again!”

Soren didn’t think the right thing could taste so bitter. The moment he looked into his sister’s eyes, he knew he already lost her. “Okay.” He murmured softly, but he also knew there was no turning back now as he began pulling away.

“Goodbye, Clauds.”


	2. Claudia: Running In the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Claudia, there is no such thing as going too far if it means keeping her family.  
> Especially her father.

Claudia doesn’t like to think about things like whether there is always a loser to every winner. Her father taught her from a young age that if she always won then she didn’t have to worry about it. He taught her that she was too young to worry about such things, period, and that as her father he would make sure she wouldn’t have to struggle with such thoughts.

It’s why she doesn’t think too deeply on how Dark Magic often means maiming or killing a creature. They weren’t dying, she’d tell herself. She was gaining power to protect her friends and family. That’s what she focused on.

Even on this trip, as she noticed her brother slowly turn lukewarm to their conquest of Xadia, Claudia tried not to think too hard on it. She tried to block it out. After all, Soren was always a little slow. He simply didn’t understand because these things were complicated and Soren wasn’t very intelligent or knowledgeable. But Soren shouldn’t stress out about it. He was still young. They had their father and their father could manage these things for them.

Which is why, now, as she dashed after Soren, following him, she didn’t know what to say. He looked at her with those bright eyes of his — their mother’s eyes, pleadingly, and she felt the familiarity of it all close in on her like the walls of the dungeon.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?” Her voice felt strained as he looked at her with those pained, defeated eyes.

“I can't stay here anymore, Claudia.” He rasped. Soren took a sharp breath. “You've seen what's going on. What Dad turned Kasef into.” A pause. “What Dad turned into.”

Claudia wanted to disagree. They were doing the right thing. The soldiers and the prince volunteered to have more power and they got it. The Sunfire elves were their enemies and humans were victorious. Yes, all of it was dangerous, but there was nothing about war that wasn’t. The words she wanted to say felt like ash on her tongue though, so she said only what she could bring herself to.

“Maybe he's just doing what needs to be done.” A justification. A lie to herself. Or an omission. It didn’t matter. She had bought into this strategy for years. It’s how she kept herself going. After all, her father was a great man, right? If he said this is how things had to be done, then that was it. He wouldn’t lie to her.

“Claudia,” her brother sighed. “you're changing, too.” He shook his head. “But it's not too late. Come with me, Claudia. You can leave him!” This was her brother now, someone whom she always thought would understand her better than anyone, who would stand by her through everything. Here he was, saying he’d leave her too. Unless she came with him. Claudia shook her head.

“Please, Soren, don't don't do this to me.” She saw the anguish on his face and hoped she could sway him. “Don't make me choose. Not again!” 

“Okay.” Soren murmured and she hoped, prayed he saw her point. Instead, she heard the soft clink of his plate mail as he began to step away from her. Abandoning her. Just like their mother did.

“Good bye, Clauds.”  
“No! No! No, no, no!”

Her father loves her.  
He loves her more than her mother ever did.  
He loves her and Soren more than their mother loved them.  
He loves her more than Soren ever did.

Claudia found his broken body at the bottom of the valley. Had she not known the clothes he wore and seen his familiar crawl about nearby, she wouldn’t have recognized him. Returning to the gruesome sight now, she ambled forward as if in a daze, a dragon’s claw tucked carefully out of sight in her bag, a dagger hidden in her robes, curious footsteps behind her.

“And you are sure, young one,” spoke the Skywing elf behind her, both curious and worried, “that your father is wounded and over here?”

“Y-yes.” She tried to sound every bit the scared child she was.

“I heard there was a great battle here a few days ago. I thought the humans all went home.” Claudia bit her bottom lip. If the elf put two and two together, this was doomed. Her hand tightened around the hidden dagger. Just a little further.

“I wanted to leave, really,” she paused, playing her angle, “With the usurpers gone, I hear our home, Katolis, is in good hands again, but I couldn’t find my Dad.” She heard the elf make a sound. “And then I heard him calling for help. I know his voice anywhere. I found him and I told him to hold on while I got help.”

“And then you found me as I was taking a flight.”

Claudia nodded. “I was so happy to find someone. Please,” she looked to the brown eyed elf pleadingly, “I know I shouldn’t still be here in Xadia, but I can’t go home until my Dad’s okay. He’s all I have left.”

“How could humans have missed one of their own and left him so gravely wounded here? Such utter carelessness.” The elf stopped, finding where Claudia had dragged Viren’s body into a sitting position. He gazed at the young mage worriedly before running over to Viren. Claudia rushed over with him, watching as he knelt down and began looking for some sign of life.

“Young one, look,” his voice broke, “it would seem that your father is…” a pause. Claudia closed the gap between them as he found his words again. “Gone. I’m sorry.”

The knife was out. It sunk deep into the elf’s flesh. He gasped. Confusion. Pain. Then when he saw her pull out the dragon’s claw, the horror of realization.

“You lured me…” The elf gasped. She twisted the knife.  
“Yes.”  
“Then you knew that…”  
“I did.” Claudia gave him a grim smile. “But he won’t be for much longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the end of this one. Let me know what you think! Feel free to leave comments here or reach me through Reddit (same user.)


End file.
